BitPesa is a bitcoin payments and trading platform that aims to give Africans unfettered access to the benefits of the

BitFury Group, the bitcoin mining giant and transaction processing company, announced today that it has made an investment in the Africa focused firm, BitPesa. The “strategic investment”, as BitFury refers to it, was made by its investment arm BitFury Capital for an undisclosed sum as of now.

The service enables sending payments to and from Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, and Tanzania. BitPesa accepts bitcoin and exchanges it for local African currencies, which are then deposited into African bank accounts or mobile money wallets. It also sells bitcoin in Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda.

“Our mission is to make global transacting easier, especially for those who continue to face obstacles to financial growth,” said Valery Vavilov, CEO of BitFury. “A secure, transparent and trusted form of exchange is being made possible by BitPesa, and our investment will allow us to work together to leverage the innovative power of the Bitcoin Blockchain for the benefit of the entire pan-African continent.”

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BitPesa, which is licensed by the FCA as an Authorized Payment Institution, uses bitcoin to exchange directly between African currencies and other global currencies, reducing the dependency on using the U.S. dollar as an intermediary.

“It has been great to have the support of the BitFury Group, who work extremely hard to build community amongst companies working with bitcoin, large and small,” said Elizabeth Rossiello, CEO of BitPesa. “Valery and his team have a long history working in frontier markets and nothing is more important to our team than an understanding and support of the work we do.”